


this hope is treacherous

by perfectlyrose



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Introspection, Late Night Conversations, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 11:13:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16136060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlyrose/pseuds/perfectlyrose
Summary: The middle of the night always feels so fragile.Jyn is running from her nightmares of what happened and could have happened on Scarif. She eventually runs straight into Cassian.





	this hope is treacherous

The middle of the night always feels so fragile. 

The base is never silent but when darkness falls people walk quieter and lower their voices to whispers. The line between light and shadow seems to blur in these handful of hours. 

Jyn tugs her blanket closer around her and leans back against the stack of cargo crates. She hopes that the deeper shadows here will keep her hidden from anyone who walks by. She isn’t used to the way people stare at her, the way she attracts attention as she shuffles down the base corridors on her way to visit her crewmates in the infirmary. They’d limped back to Yavin IV on a stolen shuttle four days ago and now whispers follow them everywhere. Or rather, they follow her and Bodhi since they are the only ones up and about.

Most of the time she can handle it. A scowl and the limp and the cuts still littering her face keep most people from actually trying to talk to her.

Most of the time does not extend to these too-quiet moments when the night hangs heavy around her. The last two nights she’s woken up in her bunk, screams stuck in her throat as the image of Cassian falling, of the horizon disappearing, of her newfound friends dying in her arms play on repeat behind her eyelids. On those occasions she slips out of her room, needing to escape the close quarters, needing to  _ move _ .

Tonight the hangar is her sanctuary as she tries to find some measure of calm. She’s found a nook in amongst the cargo crates in a corner. Jyn wraps her arms around her middle and bites down on her bottom lip, willing it to stop trembling.

The metallic taste of blood blooms on her tongue as she reopens a cut on her lip.

Her fingers tap out a nervous rhythm against her side as she watches a handful of people scuttle across the darkened bay. Intelligence officers leaving on a mission, if she has to hazard a guess.

Jyn flicks her eyes over the collection of ships and pods. She could take one, fly out of here. She’s not sure anyone would stop her. It’s not like she has an official place in the Rebellion. She isn’t sure she wants one, even if she did almost give her life for it.

In these brittle greyscale moments, Jyn thinks maybe she should have died on Scarif like she does in her dreams. But she hadn’t and so now she just haunts the hallways of the base, a tangible ghost that no one knows how to rid themselves of.

Jyn closes her eyes and wills herself to sleep.

She manages a couple of hours before someone stumbles across her hiding place. 

She’s not sure that waking up to someone apologizing profusely to her while refusing to look her in the eye is any better than waking up with a nightmare still clutching at her throat.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“You’re staring,” Jyn says. She keeps her eyes trained on the tiny piles of food she’s pushing around with her fork. Maybe if she rearranges it enough, it will tempt her into having an appetite.

Cassian shrugs. “I went by your quarters last night. Wanted to clarify a few things for the report.”

“I can’t believe they’re making you do paperwork when you’re barely out of the infirmary.” She stabs a piece of a fibrous root on her plate. “It’s not like the mission was even sanctioned by them.”

“If I’m well enough to be released, I’m well enough to participate in the bureaucracy,” he says. “And they sanctioned it after we left since they ended up following us.”

She snorts. “Hardly counts.”

“Counts enough for paperwork, which means I still have to do it. I was the ranking officer on the Scarif mission.”

Jyn barely refrains from mentioning that the other instigators of the mission weren’t even official members of the Rebellion. “So you get stuck with the post-mission paperwork.”

Cassian nods sharply. “I could use your input on the report, which is why I tried to talk to you last night.”

Jyn looks up to meet his eyes. His face is inscrutable but she can sense the unease rolling off of him. “You want to know where I was.”

It wasn’t a question.

He breaks eye contact, looking at a point over her left shoulder instead. “It’s none of my business.”

Jyn wants to laugh or cry or let out some noise that’s a combination of the two. They’re a week and a half removed from almost dying on Scarif and Cassian thinks she’s managed to find someone’s bed to hop into.

“No. It’s not,” she snaps out in agreement.

Cassian drops his gaze to his plate, mouth tightening into a straight line.

Guilt sits like a stone in Jyn’s stomach. She puts down her fork, knowing she’s not going to manage food now. She’s not mad at Cassian but feigning annoyance is easier than acknowledging whatever sits between the two of them.

She can’t name it as anything but gravity, not with the way he seems to pull her in. She’d thought she was going to die with him but here they both were, alive and somewhat well and pushing unappetizing food around their plates.

“You should eat,” she says finally when the silence has stretched too long. “You’re still recovering.”

Cassian shoots a look at her own barely touched plate. “I’ll eat if you will. This is somehow worse than what they served in the medbay.”

“If I get sick from it, I’m blaming you,” she says. She picks up her fork and eats the piece of root she’d speared earlier.

His smile is small and lopsided as he scoops up his next bite.

They eat quietly for a few minutes before Jyn decides to tell him. “I was in one of the training rooms last night,” she says.

Cassian finishes chewing and takes a drink of water before answering. “Trouble sleeping?”

Jyn nods. “Figured I’d try wearing myself out since nothing else is working.”

“Let me know if you need a sparring partner. Paperwork is never-ending and sleep-inducing but I still prefer to not do it every night.”

She glances down at his side on instinct, despite the fact that his injuries or lack thereof are covered. “You up to sparring yet? They only let you out of the infirmary yesterday.”

She doesn’t mention that she’d noted the stiff way he was holding himself and the slight limp he was trying to hide.

“Perhaps not, but I can keep you company. If you want.”

Their eyes catch and hold for a few moments before Jyn looks aways. “Yeah. I think I’d like company sometimes.”

He nods and chews another bite. The mess hall is starting to fill up and Jyn can feel people staring at her, at them. Whispers pick up around them.

Cassian seems better at ignoring it than she is.

“Do you want to work on that report today?” Jyn asks.

“I’d like to get it over with, yes.”

“Come by my quarters in a few hours. I’ll try to be there this time.”

She barely gives him time to nod his assent before she’s on her feet and heading out of the mess hall, depositing her plate in a washbin as she went.

She can still feel people watching her and the itch it ignites under her skin sends her fleeing for the privacy of her quarters. The day already feels endless and it’s only half over.

She knows that days like this always lead to sleepless nights. At least, she will make it a sleepless night to avoid the nightmares.

Sleep deprivation is preferable to what waits for her in the darkness.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

That night, Jyn doesn’t make any pretense of sleeping. As soon as the light fades and the corridors empty, she exits her quarters and makes a beeline for one of the small training rooms.

It’s empty and she quickly starts working through a series of stretches. Jyn wraps her knuckles once she’s done warming up and approaches the sandbags hanging on one side of the room.

The rhythmic sound of her fists hitting the bag syncs with the heartbeat pounding in her ears. She hits the bag with a particularly hard punch and then wraps her arms around it, catching her breath as her forehead rests against the coarse material.

“They’re going to have to replace the bags sooner than expected if you do this every night.”

Jyn startles at the sound of Cassian’s voice. She turns around and finds him leaning on the wall near the the doorway. He looks exhausted and like he’s in more pain than he’d admit to.

She wonders if she looks as bad. She’s willing to bet that she does.

“Come to find me?” She asks.

“Yeah. Thought you might be training again.”

They’d met to go over the Scarif report earlier and talking about the mission had pulled the memories to the forefront once more. She sees Cassian falling, sees the bright light of destruction everytime she closes her eyes.

Here, staring straight into Cassian’s dark eyes from across the room, she remembers the elevator ride down instead. 

She walks towards him, as unable to resist the pull now as she’d been then.

(She’d almost kissed him in that elevator. It would have been so easy to push up that last inch and a half and press her lips to his.)

(She hadn’t and she isn’t sure if she regrets it or not.)

(She still feels the light touch of his breath against her lips and the heavy weight of his eyes sometimes. It’s a memory she clings to when the nightmares threaten to overwhelm her.)

Jyn slides down the wall to sit next to him, a scant two inches between their shoulders.

“Does it help?” he asks.

Jyn shakes her head. “You know it doesn’t.”

They’ve both seen too much to think they can outrun the nightmares.

She leans over and rests her head on his shoulder. “I don’t feel like I fit here. I’m not doing anything except wandering the hallways late at night and scaring people.”

“Scaring people?” Cassian asks, a note of curiosity in his voice.

“Have you not noticed the way people shy away from me? They’re fine with staring at me but if I look back, they can’t get away fast enough.”

“I don’t think they’re scared of you, Jyn,” he says gently. “You’re a hero. They’re in awe.”

Jyn shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”

Cassian’s quiet for a moment. “You could have a place here, if you wanted.”

“Join the Rebellion and get sucked into the endless round of paperwork with you?”

“The paperwork is not the best selling point,” he admits.

“I imagine it’s not in the recruiting spiel.”

“Probably not.”

“I’m not good at following orders,” Jyn says.

He’s silent for a moment before carefully answering. “Sometimes orders need to be disobeyed.”

“I  _ know _ that’s not in the recruiting material.”

“You’re a breath of fresh air in this place, Jyn. I think the Rebellion needs your spark,” he says. 

His cheek is pressed to the crown of her head. She can feel his words vibrate through her.

She feels more grounded, more real, here in this moment with him than she has since Scarif, than she has in years, really.

She wants to stay and be useful, but more than that she wants to stay with him.

Jyn pulls away to look him in the face. “Cassian, do you want me stay?”

He studies her for a moment, eyes moving over her face like he was memorizing her. “Yes. I want you to stay, Jyn.”

“Then I’ll stay.”

He reaches out and pulls her back to rest on his shoulder. She feels his sigh of relief.

They sit there leaning against each other until Jyn’s eyes start to droop. She considers telling him that they should go back to their respective quarters and try to sleep but just closes her eyes instead.

Waking up to Cassian smiling down at her is far preferable to being woken by nightmares, Jyn decides some hours later.


End file.
